The Evaluations Of Taxonomic Classifications In The Genus Trifolium L. Based On ITS Sequences

Abstract

The genus Trifolium L. belonging to family Fabaceae is represented by about 255 species in the world. Two classifications based on the sections or subgenus are commonly used by the researchers in the taxonomically evaluation of the genus Trifolium. However, there are still some confusing and complex situations about the taxonomy of the genus. For this reason, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions between rDNA genes in nrDNA were examined for 139 Trifolium taxa with the Maximum Parsimony (MP) method. Furthermore MP tree were evaluated based on two classification used commonly in the genus to provide contributions to taxonomic classification of the Trifolium species and to evaluate phylogenetic relationships of the Trifolium species. Study results support the status of subgenus proposed by new infrageneric classification. Also it can be stated that it is rationale to divide the section Lotoidea into several sections according to phylogenetic relationships of the taxa examined. Finally, this study reveals the importance of sequence information and problems in the barcoding.